Karl Wiggins > Karl's Quotes

“The bank man had been standing quietly by our picnic table, waiting to lock up the house. Around his waist he wore a live rattlesnake for a belt. Behind it, his stomach was a black hole of hunger.”
― C.E. Medford, Magic America

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“What kind of a turnip are you? Are you fucking stupid? She didn’t shag these blokes out of revenge. She shagged them because she wanted some dick!”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“The message? Do not fuck with your ears! The damage done is irreparable!”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“You see what your mother-in-law hasn’t yet realised is that she’s the one who needs to hold out the olive branch, not you, because she’s the one who’s going to want to come around more and more in the future to see her grand-kids. SHE needs to make friends with YOU, not the other way around.”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“Words are the writer's sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They're our enchantment and our temptation”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad’s garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who’s just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There’s no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there’s a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It’s a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we’re wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It’s acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it’s a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever.”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“They drain you sometimes. They really do.
"What's it all about then mate? What's the secret of life? You should know. You're a fucking cab driver."
Yeah, right. (As if I'll learn the secret of life talking to arseholes like you all night).
"Got any saucepan lids, mate? I've got two. I hate them. Bastards, they are. Ruined my life. I hate the bastards."
I keep quiet
"Don't try and rip us off, mate. I've got a key between my knuckles."
(Whatever).
The life of a cab driver. Glimpses into other people's lives.”
― Karl Wiggins, Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab

“Times change and people change and you can never go back to the way things were and find them to be the same - they won't be.”
― Bernie Morris

“It’s got fuck all to do with being racist. I don’t care if he’s purple or orange or fucking yellow with pink spots! Although if he’s yellow with pink spots perhaps we should call a first aider. All I care about is his CSCS card and this Home Office card that is now in my possession”
― Karl Wiggins, Dogshit Saved My Life

“As they call last orders, he’ll walk over to a girl he’s no doubt slept with before, pour half his pint over his own head and the remainder over hers, and with a twinkle in his eye say, “Looks like you’ve pulled again, doesn’t it?”
― Karl Wiggins, Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab

“If someone drowned at sea a couple of hundred years ago they’d either start to decompose immediately or they’d get eaten by fish or other scavengers. The bones would eventually sink down to the seabed and either be slowly buried by marine silt or broken down further over the years, but the flesh would one way or another eventually become water, which would evaporate into clouds and then rain down upon the earth once again to become plants and flowers.
The flowers in your garden could once have been famous pirates such as Blackbeard or Calico Jack.”
― Karl Wiggins, Shit my History Teacher DID NOT tell me!

“Have you seen the state of some of these vegetarians? They look like they’re going to drop down dead any minute. We didn’t fight our way to the top of the food chain to be vegetarians, did we? Can you imagine a fry-up without the sausage and bacon? Or not being able to order steak, egg and chips? Can you imagine Christmas dinner without the turkey? Or a barbeque without the ribs?”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“Above all else, be true to yourself. Do what YOU want to do. Walk alone and be your own judge. It’ll be a bumpy road sometimes, but you’ll carry yourself a little taller at the end of each and every journey. In the end nobody except you cares whether you run your life at the beck and call of everyone else or whether you choose to be a Warrior-Sage, living your own life.
And that’s the way it should be.”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“When leaving the ground, our ears were assaulted by language that you wouldn’t normally hear on a building site. In fact, most people in construction wouldn’t normally swear in public or in front of children. It appeared to me that the men in their twenties using these words were doing so on purpose, perhaps to make themselves appear ‘hard’ amongst other Millwall supporters, or to intimidate the opposition. But looking at them, they were pigeon chested and weak armed, and I suspected their use of foul language was intended to boost their stature to compensate for their lack of physical strength”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“They reminded me, however, of soldiers in the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses or the Norman Conquest. Thick, but willing to fight anyone if told to”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“It’s a huge generalisation, and possibly unfair, but there is a nasty element to certain sections of the Millwall Crowd”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“When all’s said and done they’re a strange breed, these South and East Londoners, and they’re amused by little things. Their love of jellied eels and pie ‘n’ mash is astonishing. “Food of the Gods,” they call it, as they enter some filthy hovel to order pie ‘n’ mash, without even knowing what they’re eating. I’ve asked what meat it is and been told, “Meat? Its pie, pie ‘n’ mash with liquor. Food of the Gods.”
But it’s not food of the Gods at all. It’s just pie and mashed potatoes, and that’s it. Nothing special about it. There’s nothing nostalgic about it. It’s not Bermondsey Billy Wells or the Artful Dodger. It’s just a meat pie and mashed potatoes. And it looks like Barry Manilow’s blown his nose in it.”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“Much as I try not to find weirdos amongst the other passengers, I keep finding weirdos amongst the other passengers. Take this old woman yesterday, marching down the platform in front of me like she had a stick stuck up her arse. She had a face like an albino walnut. I didn’t know this at the time, of course, until I had cause to glance at her.
Anyway, she was marching along talking to someone, swinging her arm about, and just as I go to overtake her she swung her hand down-and-out and hit me in the dick!
I didn’t know what to do.”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“A chef’s magic is his ingredients, how he can substitute one for another, then break with convention by changing it all around again without once referring to the recipe. And then just at the death complete the beauty by adding another element never previously thought of. Well words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation. Sometimes both the chef and the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“A real piece of writing is one in which the writer has tried to enrich not only the book, but also his understanding of the words. The words themselves have to be open to new ideas and suggestions, and the writer himself must have the audacity to attempt new things and to risk failure”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“Every one of the big breakthroughs in the art of literature have possibly started as what many would call a ludicrous or even laughable idea as the writer occasionally balances a routine piece with an investment in the eccentric and untried. Over time, the reward is usually worth the risk”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“Strange how the perspective changes with the point of view, isn’t it? Most people who claim to believe in the Bible don’t actually know what it says”
― Karl Wiggins, Shit my History Teacher DID NOT tell me!

“Women‘s football is crap. If it were any good people would go and watch it, but it isn’t and they don’t. And, to be honest, I doubt they ever will.”
― Dougie Brimson, Geezer's Guide to Football: A Lifetime of Lads, Lager and Labels

“To be perfectly honest, if I had my way women wouldn’t even be allowed inside grounds, and I certainly believe that if a ground is sold out and a male of the species is locked outside, someone should go in, grab the nearest female and throw her out so that the bloke can have her seat.”
― Dougie Brimson, Geezer's Guide to Football: A Lifetime of Lads, Lager and Labels

“When you lived on the wrong side of the law, information, however vague or apparently meaningless, was everything. It gave you leverage. And leverage was power.”
― Dougie Brimson, Top Dog

“He hated hospitals, hated them. The stench of Domestos and death seemed to linger in his nostrils and on his clothes for weeks, as if to remind him of something bad. It was even rare to find a tasty nurse these days. Most of the ones he'd seen this afternoon had been as ugly as sin.”
― Dougie Brimson, Top Dog

“I always enjoy the day after a hangover. Each time it happens, it’s my own little victory over the demon drink.”
― Dougie Brimson, Billy's Log. The Hilarious Diary of One Man's Struggle With Life, Lager and the Female Race

“These days, things were different. Much different.

For the most part, what fun there was to be had at Upton Park came from the cat and mouse side of the contest. Thinking on your feet and trying to outwit old bill while still trying to get one over on the opposition. It was like a real life computer game, Theme Hooligan.

He still got a buzz from it though, but not the same buzz. And he wasn’t alone. The scene was dying on its arse although that wasn’t always down to the police.”
― Dougie Brimson, Top Dog

“Heads up lads!” someone shouted. “Here we go!”

More missiles, this time not just bottles, but coins as well. And then from the other side of the cordon, a roar went up. Bellowing across the road toward them.

Billy watched as the Manchester lads poured forward, desperately trying to force a way through the massed ranks of the police only to be driven back by batons and gloved fists.

Another salvo of bottles came flying across, trying to provoke a reaction. But the West Ham lads merely stood and laughed. They didn’t need to respond. The point had been made, the result earned.

Billy was happy. Very happy.”
― Dougie Brimson, Top Dog